Getty Images launches its much-anticipated forecast of visual trends set to inform and influence global advertising, design and visual communications in the years ahead

London – 28 November, 2016: Getty Images, a world leader in visual communications, today unveiled its highly anticipated visual trend forecast. The ground-breaking forecast sets out the macro and micro trends that will influence design, advertising and brand communications throughout 2017 and predicts the social and cultural visual language that consumers will be most responsive to in the years to come.

The six themes forecast by Getty Images’ global team of visual anthropologists and art directors, are identified through extensive research and the company’s unique access to, and analysis of, imagery in advertising, pop culture and the changing behaviours of consumers and society globally. This is further augmented by Getty Images’ own search and image data from the 400 million downloads from its website each year. All of these data points are then analysed to create a holistic view of the imagery techniques and styles expected to make an impact in the year ahead.

The trends inform, inspire and influence art directors, editors, and artists worldwide across creative industries, from journalism to branding and advertising. Pioneering visual trends forecasting over 20 years ago, Getty Images’ past predictions have pre-empted visual movements across gender, social consciousness, design, technology, travel and more.

The 2017 trends identified by Getty Images’ visual trend experts are:

1. Virtuality: Technology is increasing the size of our world, expanding our senses and allowing us to move beyond two dimensional imagery and into visuals that surround and immerse us. Technology and imagery are converging at an apex that will take the power of storytelling to an infinite level. In harnessing VR, brands will effectively immerse us in their story, developing highly emotive shared experiences that will extend the consumer’s connection to a brand beyond its products and services.

2. Gritty Woman: There’s a new woman on the scene, and we’ve seen her emerge from a confluence of other trends we’ve identified over the last five years. She’s smashing conventions and tearing down walls, more concerned with what she can do than with how she looks. She’s tough. She’s tenacious. She’s laser-focused and unafraid to get her hands dirty. She’s not to be crossed, overlooked or underestimated, and she will fight for her beliefs without apology.

3. Unfiltered: Challenger brands are adopting the aesthetics of photojournalism to connect with younger consumers and bring a raw, spontaneous edge to their storytelling. The Unfiltered trend is the antithesis of glossy advertising; it illustrates a new direction in commercial photography, a move towards a more documentary aesthetic. It opens up a dynamic new method of image-making which cuts through the noise, and makes consumers sit up and take notice.
4. Colour Surge: Colour is no longer one component of an image; it has become the star. Our growing visual sophistication allows us to use colours in ways that break the rules and embrace unnatural combinations. The Colour Surge trend highlights the ability for image–makers to liberate themselves from traditional colour use, or the accepted theories of “what something should look like” and allow colour to drive the design and dominate the composition.

6. New Naivety: Increasingly savvy consumers are shunning the overly curated approach which the early forms of social media engendered, and are embracing a loose and irreverent touch. Brands are also jumping on board. New Naivety is about embracing visuals that are spontaneous and playful, and at times uncomfortable. It’s about imagery that is not always “on brand,” and has an offbeat – even awkward – spirit. It’s time to get weird and unpolished, and make people laugh while doing so.
7. Global Neighbourhood: The ever-increasing circulation of people, goods and information around the world is having a transformative effect on society and has the potential to change the way we see ourselves. Global Neighbourhood is about embracing this state of flux, as our collective cultural identities will be less about where we are and more about what we believe and who we connect to. Cross-cultural and socially borderless imagery will become more prevalent as brands learn to change and respond to our increasingly complex consumer identities.

“As we strive to deliver the right imagery for our customers against a rapidly changing visual world it has never been more important to make sense of what imagery is evolving and why,” said Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President of Creative at Getty Images.

“The visual trends of 2017 see us at the tipping point on a number of areas; scepticism around virtual reality has gone, replaced by an acceptance of its inevitability as a major technological watershed and excitement for what it will allow us to do visually; we’ve seen the millennial mind-set go mainstream as brands embrace a much rawer storytelling aesthetic, turning to a more realistic, editorial style of image-making; and we have come to appreciate big data and how it can help us understand social and cultural trends. Building on these insights, we hope this report can support businesses developing their communications in a contemporary way.”

Getty Images’ visual trends for 2017 have been released as part of the company’s annual creative guidebook, Creative In Focus. Along with more in-depth analysis of the visual trends, the publication features a deep dive into search data and essays which respectively look at the normalising of taboos and the myths and misunderstandings of brand communication to the millennial audience. The publication also highlights talented image-makers around the globe and, in phenomenal photo essays, goes behind the scenes of Mongolian wrestling and the re-imagination of the American rodeo tradition by the gay community. The Getty Images Creative In Focus book is available online here.

New York – 15 November, 2016:  Getty Images, a world leader in visual communications, and VICE Media, the world’s leading youth media brand, today announced a global content partnership that sees clips from VICE’s award-winning content made available to Getty Images customers worldwide.  VICE, renowned for its distinct documentary reporting style and popularity among young people, brings its unique footage to Getty Images’ nearly one million customers in almost 200 countries, significantly expanding its global reach.

The Vice Media Collection launches with clips from VICE’s archival footage, with clips from VICE’s owned and operated digital channels continuing to be added to Getty Images’ comprehensive video library of over five million assets.

Getty Images customers will have access to clips from stories such as Broadly’s, VICE’s women’s interest channel, documentary short spotlighting the living Kumari goddesses of Nepal, and Motherboard’s, VICE’s channel exploring the intersection of culture and technology, in-depth coverage of biohacking, as well as content from other VICE digital channels, with many more clips to come as content from VICE’s editorial line up continues to be added.

“At Getty Images, we’ve seen a significant demand from both media and brands for authentic, real-world visual content that has only grown over the last few years,” said Peter Orlowsky, Vice President of Business Development at Getty Images. “As the leading editorial voice for today’s millennial audience, VICE Media are experts at creating dynamic content through a lens of authenticity that will enrich Getty Images’ extensive video offering, and enable our customers to connect with a broad global audience in new ways.”

“This partnership will expand our global presence, bringing clips of our award-winning content covering culture, food, fashion, music, sports, tech and more, to Getty’s nearly one million customers all across the world,” said VICE Head of Content Ciel Hunter.  “The clips we are providing will allow Getty customers to connect with a young audience, utilizing our unique footage that resonates strongly with viewers.”

The live collection is available today on gettyimages.com.

About Getty Images:

Getty Images is the most trusted and esteemed source of visual content in the world, with almost 200 million assets available through its industry-leading sites www.gettyimages.com and www.istock.com. The Getty Images website serves creative, business and media customers in almost 200 countries and is the first place people turn to discover, purchase and share powerful content from the world’s best photographers and videographers. Getty Images works with over 200,000 contributors and hundreds of image partners to provide comprehensive coverage of more than 130,000 news, sport and entertainment events, impactful creative imagery to communicate any commercial concept and the world’s deepest digital archive of historic photography.

Visit Getty Images at www.gettyimages.com to learn more about how the company is advancing the unique role of still and moving imagery in communication and business, and enabling creative ideas to come to life.  For company news and announcements, visit our Press Room, and for the stories and inspiration behind our content, visit Stories & Trends. Find Getty Images on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr, or download the Getty Images app where you can explore, save and share the world’s best imagery.

About VICE Media

VICE is the world’s preeminent youth media company and content creation studio. Launched in 1994, VICE now operates in over 30 countries and distributes its programming to viewers across digital, linear, mobile, film and socials. VICE includes an international network of digital channels; a weekly and daily news programming partnership with HBO; a television and feature film production studio; a magazine; a record label; an in-house creative services agency; and a newly launched U.S and Canadian TV network, VICELAND.

VICE’s award-winning programming has been recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Peabody Awards, Sundance Film Festival, PEN Center, Cannes Lions, Frontline Club, Knight Foundation, American Society of Magazine Editors, LA Press Club, James Beard awards, and Webby Awards, among others.

Over one million clips from ITN’s award-winning editorial archive to be available on gettyimages.com; customers around the world to have unprecedented access to historic archive

 ITN, the UK’s leading supplier of independent broadcast news has agreed a multi-year partnership with Getty Images, a world leader in visual communication, to license and distribute its award-winning news archive around the world from mid-2017. The distribution agreement will see over one million clips spanning more than 60 years of iconic news footage reach an even larger audience through Getty Images’ industry-leading global platform and expert international sales team servicing millions of buyers in nearly 200 countries.

The clear global leader in video licensing, Getty Images will create specific ITN collections to house the prestigious archive, which consists of 400,000 digitised and ready-to-license video clips and over 600,000 clips which will be text searchable from gettyimages.com and supplied on demand via an offline workflow. The collection will be updated daily, with agenda-setting news footage made available to Getty Images’ international customer base from 24 hours after it was first aired.

ITN boasts the world’s first fully digitised news archive dating back to its very first broadcast in 1955 and is recognised globally for its journalistic excellence. ITN’s cameras have captured some of history’s most unforgettable moments ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela to the aftermath of the Asian tsunami.

Andy Williams, Managing Director of Digital Content Services, ITN said: “ITN’s archive represents the very best in journalism and this partnership will ensure that we are best-placed to grow our sales internationally and across a broad range of market sectors. Getty Images has the scale, expertise and distribution footprint to ensure ITN’s video archive reaches the widest possible audience and we look forward to a successful partnership.”

Craig Peters, Chief Operating Officer, Getty Images said: “Getty Images is proud to represent ITN’s archive and the rich journalist heritage it encompasses. We are a global industry leader in content licensing and have a proven track record of leadership, growth and innovation in this business. Getty Images is committed to growing and expanding ITN’s video archive business and we look forward to giving customers around the world unprecedented access to this incredible content.”

The ITN archive will be available on gettyimages.com from summer 2017. In the interim, customers can continue to license ITN archive material directly from the ITN Source website.

Third party representation deals through ITN Source will also come to an end by mid-2017 and once all content is transitioned the ITN Source platform will close.

ITN will continue to syndicate on-the-day news footage to international broadcasters and to create daily video news feeds for digital publishers. ITNedu, which creates bespoke digital content for education publishers, will remain as part of ITN Productions’ Digital Content Services business.